


What Lies Under The New Moon

by 0KKULTiC



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Corpses, Dark, Death, Detectives, Drabble, Gen, Gore, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Halloween With ATEEZ, Halloween With ATEEZ Day 1, Horror, One Shot, Short, Walks In The Woods, new moon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26770705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0KKULTiC/pseuds/0KKULTiC
Summary: Detective Yunho and his partner Yeosang wander the woods late at night to make a grisly discovery.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40
Collections: /* 0KKULTiC HALLOWEEN 2k20 */





	What Lies Under The New Moon

**Author's Note:**

> // WARNING(s): gore, corpse, description of a corpse, mention of maggots/larvae, dead body/ies, mention of violence
> 
> Written for Halloween with ATEEZ prompt calender made by user Zalyshka ~ (https://twitter.com/zalyshka/status/1308422678592749570?s=20)

Dead leaves rustle loudly beneath Yunho’s feet. The sound is nearly deafening, oppressive and thunderous inside the quiet cocoon of the woods. Brittle foliage crunches and twigs snap underfoot as he advances inward. The sky is blank - a new moon, a new beginning so they say; he’s got nothing but his torchlight to show the way. There isn’t much to see.

Just leaves.

Dead, brown, crumbling leaves, the summer’s purged offal. Occasionally, a breeze runs through the labyrinth of oak and maple, sending a chill down the detective’s spine. Though it’s only the first day of October, it cuts through the gabardine of his trench with entirely too much ease.

“See anything yet?” Yeosang’s voice bounces between the tree trunks from behind Yunho. It’s just the two of them, the detective and his partner. They’d gotten a panicked call late in the evening from. An avid hiker, voice shuddery and panicked, stuttered out their recountence of a grisly discovery among the brush.

A body.

“Mangled,” They said. “It was completely and utterly mangled.”

Local law enforcement took a statement before dumping it on the independent P.I. and his faithful deputy. Yunho’s workdays used to be filled with snooping of the digital kind, unearthing sad truths and ugly secrets. He’s had more paranoid spouses darken his doors than he could count, given the local divorce lawyer more than a few referrals, too. But then he moved, and suddenly work got a lot more interesting.

“Nothing,” Yunho calls back to Yeosang. He frowns, brows furrowing with annoyance. It’s goddamn impossible to see right now. What little cracks of sky leak through the canopy give nothing in way of wayfinding illumination. The woody, mossy musk of the woods fills his nose, so he can’t exactly follow that, either.

“We’re still on the trail, right?” Yunho asks Yeosang.

“Uh-” Yeosang’s torchlight bobs around. “Yeah, I still see the marker.”

“Thank god,” The other murmurs under his breath.

They must look funny to the native woodland creatures. Little lights clumsily lumbering through the brush, making noise, turning over leaves and rock. Yunho regrets dressing so lightly. It’s gotten so cold so quickly.

Something glimmers in the light of Yunho’s torch, making him halt abruptly. Something lustrous twinkles beneath the brush.

“Yeosang! Shine your light over there- ahead of us,” Yunho instructs the other. His partner approaches his side and obliges. The two focus their light just a few paces ahead. “Does that look… Unusual to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. Let’s check carefully,” Yunho says. He sticks his flashlight under his armpit so he can slip on a pair of sterile gloves. It could be nothing, but given the worrying trend in the town, it could very well be a crime scene.

Yunho still remembers the first time the sheriff of the town darkened his door. He called prior, inquiring about consulting work. “Noticed the sign driving by the other day,” the man said, gesturing to the foil lettering Yunho had put on the glass of his remote strip mall headquarters. In tow, he had a middle-aged woman who looked like she hadn’t slept a wink in days. She clutched her bag tightly as she regaled the grisly discovery of a severed limb in the rose bushes lining her backyard.

The detective wasn’t sure why they thought it was work he’d be qualified to do. Most intense stuff he’d dealt with prior was burglary. Still, money was money, and having just barely established himself in a new place, Yunho saw no reason to say no.

He’d seen his fair share of body parts since then. Less attached to the living than he’d like.

Yunho approaches the peculiarity with caution. Unfortunately, the woods don’t care about the amount of wariness with which the critters within wander. One of his boots catches on a root, sending his body catapulting forward. He hisses a curse, kicking up brush noisily in the process, and just barely manages to retain his balance.

_ Crunch _ .

“What was that?” Yeosang asks, whispering for some reason.

The sickening sound is all too familiar. Though he’s been in this line of work before, it still makes Yunho’s stomach turn. He steps back slowly and leans down, gingerly sweeping aside dead leaves.

“Here, Yeosang,” He murmurs. His partner obliges, shining the torch where directed.

“Oh, god,” Yeosang mutters.

As Yunho sweeps debris out of the way, the disheveled corpse beneath gets revealed little by little. He accidentally stomped on the poor person’s ankle in his clumsiness. Though it’d been reported in the morning, the dried down blood is still slightly tacky. It hasn’t been more than twenty hours.

“Mangled” is a proper way to put it. There’s an emotional human being within Yunho, one utterly appalled, upset and taken aback at what he’s seeing. But that human has no place in the present, so he locks them up behind a glass wall. They can look and observe while he does his job. Yeosang puts in the call to the coroner while Yunho does a superficial inspection of the body. He frowns as he gradually unearths what used to be a person. Their limbs are bent in ways that no person’s limbs ought to be, massive claw marks scoring their skin. 

The massive gouge in their stomach is crusted over with coagulated blood and dirt. Maggots have started to take advantage of the vacancy left by the human spirit. Something about the sight of the squirming larvae makes Yunho’s stomach churn. He can tolerate dismemberment, pools of blood, slashed flesh - but the  _ maggots _ .

He steps back before it makes him completely sick.

“What did they say?” Yunho asks.

“Fifteen minutes,” Yeosang responds.

“So it’ll be twenty.”

“Yup. Shit. It’s like the others, isn’t it?”

“All the limbs seem to be attached to this one.”

“Same thing with the stomach, too?”

“Yup.”

“You think they’ll ever tell us anything?”

“Nope. We’re just their scent hounds,” Yunho mumbles. This marks body number six found since they got brought in to help the county’s lazy law officers. Their contribution is usually like that of an errand intern - go here, do this, find this record, send this here. Nobody actually tells them anything. They’re not privy to case developments or lab results or any new findings.

Not that it stops Yunho from wondering.

Wondering is what got him there in the first place - from snooping around as a kid for a hobby to starting in the academy, to promptly dropping out when he realized that they didn’t want people asking too many questions, just shutting up and saying okay. Wondering has landed him in all types of trouble, too, and it could very well be the death of him.

But he can’t help himself.

“You’re thinking about the case, aren’t you?” Yeosang asks.

While they are not entitled to any official documentation regarding the case, they have been building one. How could he not after all that he’d seen?

“Yeah.”

“This one is… Interesting.”

“Surprisingly less violent than the others. Last one was like that, too. Only one arm was taken off. It’s weird. One would think an accomplished murderer would grow increasingly violent over time. They’d feel empowered with the lack of retaliation to be more violent. This one’s getting less brutal as time goes on- at least, that’s what it seems.”

“Very CSI of you, detective.”

“I was thinking more Criminal Minds.”

“Whatever, nerd.”

The two chuckle in spite of everything. The sound dissolves quickly as the breeze picks up, rustling more leaves and brush with it.

“What are your thoughts, Yeosang?”

Yeosang sighs, “You know, there are legends of werewolves around these parts.”

“Werewolves?”

“Yeah. You know. Lycanthropy. Man-wolves.”

“Wh- Yes, I know. I just-” Yunho chuckles despite himself. “They usually transform on the night of a full moon. Not a new moon- or a waning crescent.”

“Okay, fine, but- I’m just saying, what if the killer isn’t human?”

Yunho raises his brows bemusedly at the other, “Come again?”

“Come on, Yunho. I know we don’t have a medical background, but think about it. The force used in these killings. There’s no method behind it. Bodies are left around carelessly- but almost always close to the woods.”

“They talked about a bear before…”

“Except there are no bears nor are there any signs of bears.”

“They’re reclusive creatures.”

“Yet they freely approach humans to gut them before leaving their corpses to rot? It doesn’t make sense. I’m not a bear expert, but if they’re strong enough to do this, they ought to be strong enough to drag a body to their cave. It’s fall, so wouldn’t they be stockpiling food or something?”

“I- I don’t know. I’m kind of out of my depth with this one. But… You might be right with something… Not human. It’s a sound theory. Not human, but not wary of them either, it seems.”

“There’s also the matter of timing… How long has it been since the last one was discovered.”

“Three, maybe four weeks?”

“Hm,” Yeosang lapses into silence, clearly contemplative.

Something sparks in Yunho’s mind, a faint connection, “The werewolves- were you serious about that?”

“What?”

“That there are local legends regarding werewolves?”

“Oh- Uh, yeah. It was, um, playing on the news, a story. One of the folks at the diner talked about it. Nice lady at the counter. Said ‘the damn werewolves are back’. Apparently, it’s a well known local legend - at least among older people.”

“What do you think brought that on? How old are the legends, anyway?”

“I- I don’t know. Why?”

“Your diner worker said they’re ‘back’?”

“That’s what she said.”

“She said it casually?”

“Yeah.”

“Did anyone react?”

“No. Well, one of the workers kinda rolled their eyes. Someone our age. Told me ‘not to be worried’. He’s the one who informed me it’s just a local legend some of the older folks hold onto.”

“Huh. D’you think there was a string of similar killings that spurred the legend?”

“Um. There very well could be. The place is open twenty-four hours. If she’s there, I can ask after all this.”

“Maybe you should.” 

  
The cogs in Yunho’s head turn with contemplation. Werewolves. It sounds ridiculous, but maybe there is a “werewolf” on the loose. If he can find similar occurrences from the past, it could very well inform them of the present and the future.

“Actually,” Yunho breaks the silence that had fallen between them, “Let’s both go.”

“Hm?”

“To the diner. Coffee and pie on me?”

Though he can’t see it, he can hear the other’s smile.

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“Yeah. Shit, I hope they show up soon. The woods is so different during the night.”

“No kidding... You never know what lurks beneath the black of the new moon.”

“Whoa. How poetic. You read that in a novel or something?”

“No,” Yeosang shrugs, smiling coyly. “Just a thought.”

**Author's Note:**

> // Thank you for reading!


End file.
